The Reason Most People Fail Is Because They Quit Too Soon

Failing: Maybe you had your first experience with it in grade school, maybe it was a race you wanted to win and you didn’t, or maybe it was getting that big promotion to take care of your financial problems and it just didn’t happen. Whatever the circumstances, we have all had our share of failures in life. In fact, failure is one of those proverbially inevitable things in life, and at some or other point it is going to happen to you.

If we all went through life having everything we wanted fall into our laps with the greatest of ease, how would we learn our lessons? Think back to when you were a kid. How did you know that a stove was hot? You touched it and burnt yourself, and the chances are that you never touched it again. You learnt a lesson and probably didn’t repeat it because you knew what the outcome would be.

And that is what life is like. We all start out with a clean slate, not knowing what the future holds or how we are going to propel ourselves into it. We only learn which direction to go in, what decisions to make, and how to handle situations once we have been there, done it and learnt the errors of our ways.

The key idea in getting over those bumps is change. And yes, when the road isn’t smooth, you need to accept you might have to take a detour to get there. Sure, it might take longer, use more fuel and test your nerves, but it is always possible. If you want to survive, you need to adapt. A moth doesn’t throw in the towel when it realizes it isn’t a butterfly because it will die; if goes into its cocoon and changes form. Change is necessary for survival. Yes, its wings are frail and it can’t fly straight away, but it waits patiently for the right time and season and does what it necessary to complete the cycle of life.

Life is a ride, but it is a bumpy road and full of obstacles, distractions and temptations. Those are there to separate the winners from the losers; which doesn’t mean to say that a few challenges in life make you a loser. What differentiates the crowd is that some people can pick themselves up afterwards, learn what tripped them up in the first place, and make life beautiful regardless.